Rumble & Shakespeare
by David D. Amaya
Summary: A TCP story A young student of the Bard gets into a fight with the leader of the Yancy St. Gang.
1. Part 1

_Tales of the Common People:_

_**"Rumble & Shakespeare"**_

By David D. Amaya

Part 1

* * *

This is my first TCP story and my first Challenge response. But unlike other TCPs this is a LONG one. I hope the story is worth the size.

**_Sheldon Burnham's Unique Power Challenge:_**

_Sheldon says he's tired of the telepath of the week and the telekinetic of the week. His challenge is to write a mutant whose powers are **anything** but those two, the more unique the better!_

Disclaimer: One character.(Non X) Two places, and the overall concept belong to Marvel. Two stupid look-a-likes resemble characters belonging to Mike Judge. The rest is mine.

Thanks Go out to my Beta Readers: Raven Adams and "Kielle" Newcomb. Thank you guys for all your help!

* * *

**_I thought he was dead..._**

It wasn't bad enough he had crossed the wrath of Frank "Dice" Markinson, but the only one who had the nerve to stand up for him was mad at him too!

I keep thinking they'd draw straws or flip freshman to decide who'd kill him, but I NEVER figured it would have ended like THAT, even all these months later.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm rambling again, I guess you don't know what I'm talking about. My name is Jerry Tubbs, and the aforementioned dead man is my best friend in the world, Shakes, short for "Shakespeare."

Now I know what you're thinking, _'Anyone nicknamed after a dead playwright has to be a short, skinny, wimp of a 14-year-old, with a name like Poindexter.'_

Well, if you thought that...

_You'd be right._

Not only is he almost 7 inches shorter than anyone else in school, he doesn't weigh 100 pounds fully clothed, soaking wet, and holding an shot put.

And this from his BEST FRIEND!

_For I am nothing if not critical -_  
**Othello, Scene II, Act I, Line 119**

The only weight-lifting Poindexter Goldstine does is lugging that monstrous book around, "_The Complete Unabridged Illustrated Works Of William Shakespeare."_ I mean, that book weighed almost as much as he does! But every morning you could see him at the bus stop, his nose about thirteen inches from the words of the Bard.

He does the same thing after school and sometimes, right after lunch.

That day he was reading _"A Mid-Summer's Night Dream,"_ but I like to think of that day as _"The Late-Winter Afternoon's Nightmare."_

But even then we have to turn the clock back just a little further.

_The true beginning of our end -  
**A Midsummer-Night's Dream V, I, 111**_

We had just started lunch here at the first day here at Yancy Street High School, when this junior walked up and took Shakes' orange juice.

I mean there wasn't any growling, threats or shakedown (pun **NOT** intended), he just walked up, grabbed the 99-cent carton, and walked out of the lunchroom!

He's been doing it every day since.

Now, it wasn't like Shakes ever went hungry _(despite **all** appearances to the contrary)_, as he always had a peanut butter sandwich with a banana and a Sprite, but this junior strolls on in, takes the juice, and strolls back out.

One day I had even suggested that he get two and hide one in his backpack, but that backfired as he walked, up grabbed the OJ on the table, then opened his backpack _and took the other!_

I asked him why he didn't stop buying OJ if all it was good for was getting swiped.

He just picks his face up from the book and with this short grin said that he 'didn't want to deprive him his Vitamin C'!

_The robb'ed that smiles steals something from the thief.  
**Othello, I, iii, 208**_

It was right after that, on March 15th, this all started.

_Beware the Ides of March.  
**Julius Caesar, I, ii, 18**_

Shakes and I were waiting for the bus home, his nose firmly planted in Act II Scene ii. That's when Dice, the self-professed leader of the Yancy Street Gang, came over to us, then, with a fifth of Thunderbird on his breath (or so I was told), said, "Hey dork, I'm short for beer, fork over some green!"

"But all I have is for the bus," I told Dice.

"You don't need money to walk, dickweed," he remarked then he reached into my back pocket and grabbed my wallet and took out the three dollars I had in it.

"Now its your turn, Poindexter," he sneered at Shakes.

Not even taking his eyes out of his book he produced a 5 bill and handed it to Dice.

"Hey, thanks," he said as he snatched the bill from him. Then that Neanderthal brain started a thought (_a dangerous pastime for him, I'm quite sure)_.

"Hey, if you were so willing to part with a five-spot, you gotta have more. Turn out your pockets or I'm gonna pound ya!"

"That's all the money I have," he told the bully, still nose-deep in the book.

Then Dice grabbed the book and threw it down a sewer main.

Shakes looked like that was his arm he had ripped off.

_"You ruined it," _Shakes said, the dread finally reaching his voice. "That book has been in my family for eight generations. It is priceless... irreplaceable."

"**So's teeth!** You gonna fork or am I gonna have ta kick yur ass!"

"That was brought over from Europe," Shakes continued looking ready to die from the loss. "My grandfather brought it with him when he escape the Nazis. It will kill him that it is ruined."

"So what, nerd," Dice touted. "You wanna hit me."

Suddenly Shakes straightened up, struggling to choke back the tears that were welling up in him. "I'm a pacifist," he told the drunk-assed bully. "I will never raise my hands in anger against another human being."

Every man has his fault, and honesty, is his.  
**_Timon of Athens I, ii, 152_**

This brought a big smile to Dice ...

_One may smile and smile, and be villain!  
**Hamlet, I, v, 108**_

...That is, if you can call a gaped-tooth leer a smile _(I guess that's why they call him **'Dice'**)_.

Then he grabbed Shakes by his caller with his left hand and with enough cold to freeze the East River said...

_"I'm **NOT!**"_

**"Me either, Markinson."**

Dice turned around to the voice that kept Shakes from joining poor Ulrich's fate. A teenager in a red Chicago Blackhawks Jersey.

**It was the guy that's been stealing Shakes' OJ!**

"What you gonna do, fuck face?"

"Only if you swallow, Craps."

**That did it.**

Dice dropped Shakes and was eye to eye with the guy in the B'Hawks sweater.

_O! What a war of looks was there between them!  
**Venus and Adonis, Line 355**_

"I'm gonna enjoy stompin' your ass, Zamoro."

"It's gonna be tuff to stomp anything with a full body cast."

While all this was going on, Shakes dove for the sewer main and crawled through the opening. _(Oh don't worry about him getting stuck. Remember he's so skinny, **he can hula-hoop in an onion ring.**)_ Amazingly, he was able to retrieve the book, although it was now water-soaked to about three times its normal size.

"...And I'll even let you have the first swing," said the drunken Markinson.

"Your funeral, Dice," said the other guy as he cracked his knuckles.

"Wait!" Shakes yelled as he ...

**_Jumped in between them!_**

"It's all right, I was able to get it back. Maybe I can get it restored. You don't have to end this in violence."

"Someone has to teach this clown that you can't push everyone around," said the kid in the hockey jersey, "and I'm _Just what Dr. Kevorkian ordered._"

"**NO!**" said Shakes with authority I never ever saw in him. "You will **not** fight another person on my behalf."

"So what's it gonna be Poinsy," Dice taunted. "YOU wanna fight me?"

"If that will keep you from fighting each other, _yes._ I'll fight you instead."

_Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.  
**Measure for Measure, III, I, 214**_

_He snapped I tell you._

He's been picked on all his life because he won't ever fight back.

I remember him telling me once that his father was killed when he was four, during a mugging on a business trip in Philadelphia. He made a promise on his grave that he would never hit another man.

"All right, road kill, tomorrow at twelve noon on the football field." he said as he turned and staggered away. "Bring your next of kin."

The guy in the B'Hawks jersey made a move toward him, but somehow Shakes held him back.

"**_NO!_**" Shakes told him as Dice disappeared from view. _(if not scent)_ "I will not allow you to fight him. There is nothing worth fighting for."

_Come not between the dragon and his wrath.  
**Othello I, I, 124**_

The guy then grabbed Shakes by the collar and dragged him behind the bushes. As I followed them he let Shakes go rather forcefully, _but at least he let him go._

"**LOOK!**" he started to yell at him. "I don't know what the hell your malfunction is, but if you forgot, that book was a family heirloom. _Or was that just a load of shit?_"

"No, I didn't lie to him," said Shakes. "My grandfather gave it to me at my Bar Mitzvah last year. His father gave it to him just before ... before the Gestapo took him to Auschwitz and murdered him."

"Look Goldstine, I'm not Jewish, but if someone aced something priceless to my family, the only thing on my mind would be payback, **with extreme prejudice.**"

"It isn't a _'Jewish thing,'_" Shakes told him. "I promised my father I would never raise my hands in anger to another human being."

"But you just got yourself into a fight with Lice Markinson."

"Yes, but I'm not going to fight him. Violence never solves anything."

"That's where your wrong, Goldstine," he told Shakes. "I'm a Golden Gloves boxer back in Chicago. I can take him fast and he won't get hurt, _well **too much** anyway_, but it will teach his ass a lessen."

"Listen to him, Shakes," I pleaded. "He can snap you like a twig."

"_Listen to your friend, Goldstine._ People like that push weaker people around. They push, and they push, **and they push** until someone _pushes back!_ And that someone is gonna be **ME!**"

"Not this time," said Shakes. "I'm not going to allow you to fight him."

Just then our bus pulled up. Lucky for us Shakes knows the driver, so he let us pay the next day. But the guy wasn't finished with Shakes just yet.

"What are YOU going to do then, Goldstine. Revoke my sparing license?"

Just as we left the clearing to the bus stop, Shakes turned back at the guy and said, "If I have to...

**_"Yes."_**

* * *

**End of Part one**

**_© David D. Amaya 1998_**


	2. Part 2

_Tales of the Common People:_

_**"Rumble & Shakespeare"**_

By David D. Amaya

Part 2

* * *

The next morning, Shakes wasn't at the bus stop.

He wasn't in any of his classes, either.

As lunch started to roll around the entire school was abuzz with news of the bout of the century.

But Shakes was nowhere in sight.

Maybe he was hiding.

**GOOD FOR HIM!**

Danny Zamora (that was the guy in the Blackhawks jersey, but_ I guess you kinda figured that out by yourself_) pulled me into the bathroom just before the bell.

"So where's your friend, Tubbs?" he asked. "Did he finally smarten up and realized that Lice needed his ass kicked after all?"

"No," replied a gravely voice from the doorway...

Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,  
So Dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,  
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,  
And would have told him half of Troy was burn'd-  
_**The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 208**_

...It was Shakes.

He looked like a ghost. His face was ashen and he kept staring at the ground.

"Shakes, where ya been, buddy?"

"O-MOM," he told us, but still refused to meet out eyes.

"Are you okay, Goldstine?" Danny asked.

"No, it was Grandpa...I...I showed him the book last night and he collapsed. He...he suffered a stroke. The shock of seeing the book destroyed was too much for him. The doctors, they _they didn't give him much of a chance of recovery._"

Now, I've never seen the look on a panther's face before one was about to rend prey limb from limb, but I'll bet you anything it looks a lot like the one Danny had on right then when he smashed the mirror with a left hook.

**_"THAT DID IT!"_** he yelled. **"He's gone too damn far now, I'm gonna..."**

_"No you are __**NOT**__," _Shakes told him flatly. "Just before they took him into the emergency room he said for me not to back down on my word. I'm not going to let you fight him and if those were the last words of my grandfather, than that is what _I __**WILL**__ DO_."

Then Shakes turned to me looked me right in the eye like he was about to utter his last words on earth, and said ...

"I was planning on telling you soon any way, but I'd better let you know now before you find out the hard way and I lose your friendship.

"Jerry, I'm a mutant."

It may be tough for a black kid like me from 125th Street to be friends with a Jew, but he could have told me he was from Planet Mars for all I cared. He's been like my brother since... well, forever. It didn't matter then, and it didn't faze me at all

But that was** BEFORE **Danny replied;

"**BIG** deal, Goldstine. _So am I!_

"I can go three weeks with out going to sleep. That's why I'm a straight-A student and a championship boxer, I have plenty of time to be the best at both. But I took an eight-hour nap just for Lice-Man."

"But my mutant gift is that I can keep you from even landing a punch on him," explained Shakes. "I don't know how it works, but I can keep people from touching me when I will it. And when I concentrate hard enough, I can project it to someone else.

"If you even try to fight with him, I'll keep you from hitting him with a **_fist-full of birdseed!_**"

"So what, Goldstine, you going to let him swing at you until he passes out? I did that once, it made me look stupid. _It worked,_ but still made me look bad."

That's when the lunch bell rang.

**_Silence that dreadful bell! _****  
**_Othello, II, ii, 177_

"No, I'm not going to do that" said Shakes. "II am going to convince him that fighting is not the answer."

Danny couldn't believe his ears, and said so. _"I don't believe this __**shit!**__"_

I was thinking along those same lines, too. "Shakes listen to **ME!** Punks like Markinson look at a pacifist and they see a easy victim. All he knows is a .22 and a swift kick in the ass! Your beliefs shouldn't mean **_dick_** if it gets you hurt!"

Then Shakes put on that _'I'm-going-to-quote-the-Bard-right-now'_ look on his face, and sure enough, had one for this occasion:

" _'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth, But the plain single vow, that is vowed true. -_ All's Well That Ends Well."

"**I doubt that, Goldstine,** but it suits you well, _it'll make a nice epitaph._"

* * *

As the three of us walked to the football field, there was already a big crowd waiting to see a bloodbath.

I heard people even made little handbills and were passing them out. See here's one:

**Beat-down on Yancy St.! **

National Golden Gloves,  
**Danny ****_Night Train_**** Zamora **  
Vs  
Yancy Street's very own,  
**Frank ****_Dice_**** Markinson**

Today at noon

at

Benjamin J. Grimm Field

_**Be there!**_  
_or not._

(Hey, I never said it was a program at the Garden.)

When the crowd saw us they parted like the Red Sea to the center and started to chant Danny's nickname. (No, it wasn't his _ring name,_ but since it fit his mutant power, he took it after that, _but I'm getting ahead of myself again._)

In the center of their impromptu ring were Dice and a couple of his flea-infested ilk. They looked a lot like Beavis and Butthead, only _dumber-looking._

"So looks like the Chattanooga Choo-Choo wants a one-way ride to Knuckle Junction. Welcome to your ass-whuppin'."

Shakes took off his glasses and put them in their case, (**_NO,_**_ he isn't blind like a bat without them!_), and went to the center of the 'ring,' looked Dice dead - _(sorry bad choice of words) - square,_ in the eye and said ...

"You are not going to fight him, Markinson."

The crowd ooh-ed and awa-ed and a lot snickered, including Beatrice and Butt-Face.

"Duhduhduh, What a lame-ass."

"Heh-heh-heh, yea Dice, like, let us kick his ass for you."

Markinson just walked up to him looked him up and down and said ...

"You ain't worth the time."

The crowd sighed...

**_...Then cheered._**

Shakes fell to the ground with the wind knocked out of him, courtesy of a sucker punch to the breadbasket

_"But I __**do**__ gotta warm up for Train Wreak over there."_

Danny tried to pounce on Dice, but he was held back...

**BY ****_ME_**** OF ALL PEOPLE!**

Now mind you Shakes is a skinny kid, and I'm not much better I'll grant you, but I was holding a bona-fide athlete _all by myself!_

This had to be Shakes' mutant gift because my brain was screaming at my body,**"LET HIM GO, STUPID! SHAKES' ****_GONNA DIE!_****"**

And of course _this didn't go over to well with Night Train._

_"Get the fuck __**OFF**__, Tubbs!"_ he grunted.

_"I'm __**TRYING!**__"_ I grunted back, but that was to no avail.

Meanwhile Dice grabbed Shakes by the collar and pulled him up. Then decked him right in the jaw. The only thing that beat him to the ground was the blood from his mouth.

"Get up Neardling," taunted Dice. "I ain't broke a sweat."

As you could imagine Danny was fit to be tied...

_Most likely because __**I**__ was the one who was tying him up!_

He started to pry my fingers apart, but I held fast, because for some reason I didn't feel any pain.

As part of my brain was cussing me out for letting my best friend get whooped on, another part was wondering if the pain would set in during my typing test next period

**_Then Shakes got to his feet!_**

I wanted to yell _'stay down,'_ but knowing Dice he'd be stompin' on him with those steel-toed boots he's wearing.

"So, had enough, Poinsy? Do ya wanna take a swing at me?"

Shakes spit blood, _(A LOT of blood),_ then wiped his mouth with his sleeve, **AND SAID IT AGAIN!**

"Fighting doesn't solve anything."

Just then the Assistant Principal, Mr. Linkletter, shoved his way to the center to see me holding on to Danny like my life depended on it, and Shakes full of blood and grass stains to match the handful of lumps and bruises.

"That does it Mr. Markinson, **YOUR EXPELLED!**"

Then _another_ unexpected thing happened.

**Dice KO'ed Mr. Linkletter!**

The crowd cheered like it was a Yankees game, as consciousness went out of Mr. Linkletter like a winking light.

The law hath not been dead,  
Though it hath slept -  
**Measure for Measure, II, ii, 59**

After dispensing with the Man, Dice took another swing at Shakes' head in that casual acceptance of violence only inmates at Riker's learn to enjoy

_But he missed!_ Shakes ducked, or used his powers, or both.

_"ABOUT FUCKING TIME!"_ shouted that voice in my head. _"NOW, LET GO THE BOXER, __**DUMBSHIT!**__"_

**"I'm TRYING, ****_DAMNIT!_****"** I replied to myself...

Gee, I never used to argue with my own conscience before? Do you think I need to see a shrink?

**_Fight?_**

_Oh yea,__** the story!**_ Sorry bout that!

...Well, Dice swung for his head a few more times, and missed _thankfully._ Then switched to the body and missed with all those shots, too.

It was about then when the crowd was in a real frenzy. They even started to chant his name, _"Goldstine! Goldstine! Goldstine!"_

_'Tis strange that Death should sing. -  
__**King Lear, IV, vii, 84**_

This only got Dice even madder. I wanted to yell** 'SHUT THE FUCK UP!' **but that was just another overwritten command, right up there with **'Let Danny kill Dice,'** and **'Someone call a SWAT team!'**

About three more missed swings later and Dice was really, **REALLY **pissed off.

"All Right! Now this is a FIGHT! Now saw hello to my good friend **_'Blade.'_** " Then he pulled out a butterfly knife and whipped it open. "I know he'd just love to show you a **_'slice'_** of Yancy St. hospitality!"

I have a sword, and it shall **bite** upon my necessity!  
_**Merry Wives of Windsor, II, i, 131**_

That must have scared the shit out of Shakes; now I've seen one, or two, or a thousand blades back on 125th, but I don't think he's ever seen one, let alone been on the business end of one.

It scared him so much I could feel my grip on Danny loosen.

Then everything happened in super-slow motion, ya know like a Knicks highlight reel;

Danny shoved me to the ground and started to dive for Shakes to get him out of the way.

Dice was in the wind-up for a backhand-like thrust, with the knife aimed for Shakes' scrawny neck.

Then the unbelievable happened. (**As if I hadn't said that ****_enough_**** those past few days!**)

Shakes drew his hand back, balled his fist, struck out blindly, smashed his fist into Dice's jaw...

_**Speak, hands for me!**__  
Julius Caesar, III, I, 76_

... and felt bones give.

_No, not his hand bones_;

**Dice's JAW!**

Markinson got dumped like an old pot of rotten yams as the knife flew out of his hand right to my feet as Danny made it to Shakes a split-second after the Ultimate Haymaker and tackled him to the ground away from Dice.

**"Don't touch that knife, Tubbs!" **he yelled at me, then sat Shakes up and checked him over looking for slash marks.

"Goldstine, you okay?" he asked him.

Shakes just sat there and stared at his still-clenched fist.

(And **YES** was the first and still ONLY time he ever attempted to throw a punch. But hey, that probably makes him the only fighter to bat 1.000 in a fight!)

Beavis and Butt-brain also had wide-eyed looks on their faces as they looked to their fallen hero.

Satisfied that there was no knife wounds on Shakes, Danny stepped over to Dice and looked at his face with the experience of a knockout artist...

Then **chucked** to himself.

_They laugh that win!  
__**Othello, II, iii, 177**_

"Who'd a thunk it," he announced to the hushed crowd. "Dice Markinson, the self professed leader of the fabled Yancy St. gang, _a __**glass-jaw-having**__, Rosy Palm dating, water and soap-allergic, __**CHUMP**_ knocked into next Tuesday by a 98 lb. bookworm!"

Danny stepped back to Shakes, who finally stopped staring at his hand, looked up at Danny, who grasped his fist, pulled him to his feet;

_Then raised his arm__** in victory!**_

"Yes, ladies and germs," I called out in my best Jim Lamply imitation. "We have a new champ in town, **Poindexter ****_'Shakespeare'_**** Goldstine!**"

Then the crowd stared to chant, **_"Shakespeare! Shakespeare! Shakespeare!"_**

Shakes just looked bewildered with his hand raised in glory, as I ran up to him. "Shakes, That was one **HELL** of a right hook! Where have you been hiding that?"

"I don't know," he was yelling over the crowd that was milling around him. "It felt like ..." I wasn't able to hear what he was saying over the crowd who was now doing a horrible rendition of the Olympic hymn as Danny paraded him to the Nurse's office.

After school let out, I accompanied Shakes to O-MOM to get him patched up. _(16 stitches, three cracked teeth, and a bruised rib.)_ While we were riding the elevator to drop in on Shakes' 92 year old Grandpa, Otto, he finished what he was trying to tell me after the fight.

"Jerry, I ... I can't describe it. It was like my father and my great-grandfather was in my corner. It's weird, it was like I could hear my great-Grandfather coaching me and my father throwing that punch. Then they said something to me in German."

"_German?_ I didn't know you spoke German?"

"I don't, but it _sounded_ like German to me. After that my father hugged me and lifted me off the ground then great-grandfather raised my hand, that's when Danny dragged me off the ground and raised my arm. I really didn't snap out if it until you started yelling for me."

"What did it feel like, Shakes?"

"That's weird too. It felt like I was supposed to hit Dice. I still can't explain it."

Just as he finished he made it to his Grand dad's room.

Now, let me warn you, he is a real piece of work, but that stroke must of taken the wind out of his sails.

"Dexter, _ma shlomcha_? You looked like a _vashnukad_ dog."

See, he's usually _more intense._

"I tried to stop that fight I told you about, but... I lost control."

"What meaning lost control, Dexter? Did your gift fail you?"

"Worse, Grandpa, I ... I hit that other boy."

"_'Hit the other boy?_' Do you mean you struck that boxer?"

"No, I hit Markinson."

"And that _dumpfbacke_ boy, he did _after?_"

"No, Mr. Goldstine, Dice pulled a knife like a punk, and that's when Shakes decked him." I blurted out.

Then Otto look at me then at Shakes, and put on a real sad look before he continued.

"Dexter, your father, _God rest his soul_, was killed when that mugger slit his throat, and for what! **_Eight Dollars._** Your father was not worth Eight measly dollars!

"Dexter, my grandson, you made that oath to your _aba_ that you would not strike out in fear, but if your mother and I lost you too..."

"But I failed my word to God and my father."

"**_LO._** You failed **NO ONE, DEXTER!** You never let anger rule your like your father did. When your gift developed, it was God who saw that you deserved such power. You did all that could have been asked of you by God Himself!"

"But my father..."

"Dexter, let me tell you and your _chaver_ Jerome about your father. Your mother would not allow you to know what he used to do for a living for fear of you following in his footsteps.

"Dexter, your father Josef Goldstine...

"... Was a prize fighter, like his father, and his grandfather before him."

"Then that must explain it Shakes." I said.

"Explain what, Dexter?"

Shakes explained what he told me to his Granddad.

"... Than they said something in German." he repeated what they told him as best he could phonically.

Then Otto's face lit up.

"That was what my father told my mother in a letter right after he won the Bavarian Regiment Boxing championship in 1914. My mother was living in Rodenbach, when he sent a letter and a photo of this great big trophy. The letter saying that he won all his matches by knockout.

Then he went on to tell of his dad, a decorated hero to the Kaiser, (_whoever that dude was_) then his start in the "Sweet Science" as he called it during the Great Depression.

Then he told with great sadness in his eyes of the Holocaust and his family being sent to a concentration camp called Auschwitz at the start of World War II. He and his wife was smuggled into Denmark then fled to Halifax, Newfoundland, then settled here in the Lower East Side.

Shakes' dad continued the tradition as he went to Empire State on a boxing scholarship until he broken his hand as a Senior. After he graduated he became an assistant coach and worked up to Head coach.

That night in Philly he was there for the nation championships at the Spectrum when he was mugged, he fought the guy, but he was strapped with a switchblade. He was going to announce his retirement after the finals.

"... That was why your mother never wished you to fight," Otto continued. "You became a scholar and that is why I gave you the Great Book, Dexter. You fought with your mind and not your fists! But alas there is a time when words alone cannot prevail."

Then he puts on this big 'ol grin and looks over to me.

"So Jerome, did my Dexter rock that piece of _Jiffa_?"

"Knocked him colder that a dead tuna!" I told him as a nurse rolled in a large cart.

"_Oy vey_, that reminds me they are serving fish for supper. Please hold hands with the 'Champ' and we will bless the meal, _which needs all the help it can get._ They should throw the book at the _schlemiels_ who works in the kitchen."

"Speaking of books, Grandpa, where is it? I left it on your bedside?"

"Some one took it in my sleep, they left an envelope with your name on it in its place," Then he handed it to Shakes.

Shakes read it in front of us.

"It's from Danny, _'My dad's company restores old books for a living. Now we're even for the Orange Juice, signed Night Train.'_ "

"Now this day is not a total loss after all, but just wait until your mother sees you!"

Well his mom wasn't too mad, she even made the suggested that he help Danny spar, I mean NO one can touch him so he's a natural in the ring.

Well Danny's coach was a boxer for Shakes' dad and even hired him and me to help the city team. I help the boxers train, you know holding the heavy bag, helping then with their glove work, stuff like that while Shakes makes them work on their offense (for obvious reasons) over half the team is undefeated this season but before you get any ideas in your head Shakes never attends any of their matches.

* * *

Well it's been about seven months now and we are all in London for the World Junior boxing championships. Danny is sporting a 75-0 record this year to capture his second championship.

Dice was convicted of assault and is spending 10 years as a guest of the wonderful accommodations at Riker's Island as a habitual offender.

Sadly, Shakes Grandpa, Otto, died four months ago, he was 93 years old, he is laid to rest at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, next to his wife and son.

As for me I enjoy the sport of boxing and maybe I'll go into writing. Who knows, I may get to interview Danny for Ring Magazine when he becomes Jr. Heavyweight champion one day.

* * *

"Hey Tubby, whatcha writing?"

"Oh hi 'Train, just a piece for my journal."

"Cool, hey you haven't seen Shakes anywhere have you?"

"He and his mom are in Stafford-on-the-Avon."

"Shakespeare's hood?"

"_Yep_, why do you thing he's here for if he never sees your fights?"

"Ya got a point, Tubby. Were all going to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard wanna come?"

"Sure I'll be done in a sec."

"All right, Tubby we'll be waiting in the lobby."

* * *

Well that's pretty much it, we are going to the Palladium for the first round of matches then for the finals we'll invade Wembly Stadium, that's when Shakes has a surprise,

He'll be in Night Train's corner for the final bout! Shakes' first boxing match!

Well I gotta finish my breakfast, then off to see Her Majesty...

**Hey...**

_Who drank all my orange juice?_

* * *

_**The end**_

**_© David D. Amaya 1998_**


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